Copyright

Copyright indicates the whole of the rights which the creators enjoy on their literary works and artistic.

The law recognizes as an author, any natural person who creates a work of the spirit some is her kind, her form of expression, her merit or her finality.

Protected works by the royalty include/understand literary works (novels, poems, plays, reference books, newspapers and software), the databases, films, musical compositions and choreographic works, works artistic such as paintings, advertising drawings, photographs and sculptures, and creations, geographical maps and technical designs.

The royalty does not require any formality of deposit, it is enough for the creator to prove the anteriority of its design.

The intellectual property
The intellectual property arises under two aspects: the industrial property, the property commercial and the literary property and artistic. One can define it as the whole of all the legal and administrative instruments which make it possible to protect the inventions, the innovations and creations.

The industrial property
It relates to the patents, the licenses, know-how, the counterfeit, the drawings and the models industrial, vegetable obtaining, topographies of semiconductor products and the computer software.
The property rights industrial are acquired in theory by a deposit (for the patent, the drawing and model or the mark), sometimes by the use (for trade names or the sign).
The commercial property
It treats “distinctive signs”: trademark, of trade, service, names, indications of origin, signs, trade names, the sign, company name… as well as rules of competition.

The literary property and artistic
It manages the royalties and right close intended for the profit to three categories of creators who are not recognized as an author: artist-interpreters, producers of videograms and sound records and companies of audio-visual communication. The close rights are acquired as from the interpretation of work, of the first fixing of the sound record and the first communication to the public of the programs. The rights close to the royalty are valid approximately 50 years following the year of the first interpretation for the artists interpreters.

Two categories of exclusive rights
The Code of the intellectual property defines the royalties. The author has on his creation 2 types of right:
- The moral right aims protecting “the personality” from the author through his work and at respecting this one. It consists for the author with the right to the “respect of its name, its quality, of its work, short its image, its notoriety (Article L.121-1).
The moral right is perpetual, inalienable, imprescriptible, imperceptible and is likely abuse.

- The patrimonial rights are transferable and relate to the exploitation of work. They make it possible the author to authorize the various modes of use of its work and to perceive remuneration n the other hand. The patrimonial rights are temporary. The duration of the patrimonial rights covers the life of the author. With the death of the author, this right persists for the benefit of its having rights during the calendar year in progress and the 70 years which follow (Article L.123-1 of CPI). To the expiry of this time, work falls into the public domain. Its use is free subject to the respect of the moral rights of the author.
However for:
- works of collaboration: the calendar year taken into account is that of died of the last living of the collaborators (Article L.123-2 of CPI). For audio-visual works, the list of the collaborators is restrictive, it acts of the author of the scenario, the author of the spoken text, the author of the musical compositions with or without words especially carried out for work, the principal realiser.
- collective, anonymous works and pseudonyms: protection is 70 years as from the publication of work. The publication date is determined by any mode of proof in particular by the registration of copyright (Article L.123-3 of CPI).
- the posthumous works revealed after the expiry of the period of common right: the duration is 25 years starting from January 1st of the calendar year according to that of the publication (Article L123-4 of CPI).

Infringements with the royalties

Any representation, reproduction, partial integral or, translation, arrangement or transformation made without the assent of the author are illicit and constitute a counterfeit which engages the civil responsibility and penal of its author (Article L122-4 of CPI).
In addition to civil sanctions, the violation of the royalties constitutive of forgery offence is punished of a sorrow of 15 244,90 euros fine and 2 years of imprisonment (L.335-1 articles and following of CPI). Complementary sorrows (closing of establishment, confiscation, posting of court order) can be marked.